momagri, movement for a world agricultural organization, is a think tank chaired by Christian Pèes.It brings together, managers from the agricultural world and important people from external perspectives, such as health, development, strategy and defense. Its objective is to promote regulationof agricultural markets by creating new evaluation tools, such as economic models and indicators,and by drawing up proposals for an agricultural and international food policy.

A moratorium on a new G20 agricultural meeting

February 24, 2014

The first meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors was held in Sydney on February 22 and 23. With this in mind, an IMF recent document indicated it was betting on a 3.75 percent economic growth in 2014 and close to 4.0 percent in 2015, “provided that the impact of the recent financial volatility is short-lived.” If the volatility in emerging nations is indeed a concern, some officials are not hesitating to speak up and restate that cutting down volatility is primarily a matter for all G20 member-states, especially through a better coordination strategy between the major central banks.

At a time when many observers feel that the world is embarking on a key transition regarding global economic and financial balance, it is all the more urgent to prepare for future “market turbulences”, especially regarding the increasingly globalized and financialized world agriculture.

While volatility is everybody’s business, it has principally impacted agricultural markets during the past decade. In fact, these markets are structurally faulty, and hyper-volatility is their key aspect. This is now understood by international organizations that have progressively become aware of the existence of endogenous and exogenous risks. The AMIN––Agricultural Market Information System for Mediterranean Countries––network has recently been established, and is linked to the G20 AMIS––Agricultural Market Information System––whose aim is to assemble information to fight price volatility in agricultural markets. We can also mention the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM) that was launched as a result of the G8 and G20 negotiations on food security, and that “aims to identify, assess, and quantify agricultural risks and develop strategies to tackle those risks.”

As recently reaffirmed by Stéphane Le Foll, the stronger and more trustful you get, the greater your chances for regulating markets and avoiding speculative bubbles and soaring prices. However, if everybody accepts today’s intrinsic price volatility in agricultural markets, the causes and the remedies to confront it are not meeting unanimous approval.

In 2011, the G20 agricultural meeting pledged to become an incubator for new proposals for a global governance system, and a driver for transparency and new regulation practices in global agricultural markets. Since then, even if AMIS and the Rapid Reaction Forum have been established and other instruments have been initiated, it is not evident that the next G20 meeting in Brisbane will ensure the concrete pursuit of such initiatives.